


In The Red of Night

by feeltherain



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: M/M, Nightmare!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-07
Updated: 2011-04-07
Packaged: 2017-10-17 17:58:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feeltherain/pseuds/feeltherain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Douglas has a nightmare that shakes him badly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Red of Night

**Author's Note:**

> A response to [this prompt](http://cabinpres-fic.livejournal.com/728.html?thread=247256#t247256) over on cabinpres_fic on LJ.

It’s dark. And quiet. Too quiet. Why is it too quiet? There had been music, loud music, eardrum shatteringly loud. A club. Why were you in a club? _Why were you in a club?_ Where’s Martin?

You’re outside the club now. You can feel the change in flooring from the well worn carpet to the unforgiving pavement. The street looks unfriendly. It’s empty, but you can hear people, lots of people. Everything is tinted pink, a sickly pink, from a fluorescent light above the door. You hear a noise amidst the chatter of people and you start to turn and walk down an alley. Someone is being sick to your right; she looks at you apologetically then hunches over again. You walk past. You hear a dull thud. Then someone running. You turn a corner.

Suddenly everything is coloured red. You’ve found him. He’s there, lying on the floor in a spreading, circular pool of blood, a knife handle protruding from his stomach, a matted mess on one side of his head.

There is blood everywhere. All over the floor, the wall he’s slumped against, his previously pristine captain’s uniform. His hat lies abandoned and forlorn next to him, a dark bloodstain on one side of it. His chest is still moving, but shallow and inconsistent. One of his hands rests, white as a sheet, over the knife wound to his abdomen. The other lies limp, off to the side as if it had tried to reach for his hat but had lost its energy.

You feel something you haven’t felt since you were a child: panic. Blind panic. For the first time in many years you’re scared. _God he looks so pale._ You run to him, kneel on the cold concrete, heedless of the blood soaking your trousers. You place a shaking hand on his arm, a feather touch but still he flinches.

“Martin!” you call out, too loud. It hurts the quiet, it hurts him, he groans and turns away. “Martin,” you try again, softer, better, he’s looking at you now. You can see his watery eyes corrupted by red staring at you.

“D...D...” he tries, but his words fail him.

“It’s alright, I’m here. I’m going to move your hand, alright? I need to stop the bleeding.”

You muster the calm to move his hand without gripping it tightly and holding it to your chest as you cry at the injustice. Just. Instead, you squeeze it gently, reassuringly, you hope, and lay it on the grey ground next to him. Producing a handkerchief you didn’t even know you owned from a pocket somewhere, you attempt to stem the blood flow, pressing hard on his wound, making him gasp. You whisper apologies and assurances in the same breath and keep pressing. Your fingers grow wet with something thicker than water that you can’t bear to look at right now. Your focus is on Martin’s face and the grimace of pain that it has become.

“Hold on,” you ask of him. _Please_.

“I...sorry.”

“I know, it wasn’t your fault, just hold on, Martin.”

“Love...you.”

“Yes, I...” your voice breaks, a tear escaping down your cheek, “I know. I love you too. Which is why you have to hold on. Someone will be here soon.”

“Can’t...sorry. So tired.”

“No, Martin, stay awake. You have to keep your eyes open, look at me, talk to me.”

“R...Rossetti.”

“What?”

“Chri...Christina...Rossetti.”

“The poet?”

He nods.

“What about her?”

“B...better...by far...that you should...forget... and be happy...”

“Than remember and be sad,” you finish. “Don’t even think it, Martin.”

“It hurts.”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

 _I know_.

His breath is coming shorter, barely there, the rise and fall of his chest you used to spend whole nights watching, is no longer visible.

“I was...always scared...that I wouldn’t be able...to say goodbye.”

“Martin,” your voice sounds weak, resigned.

“Goodbye, Douglas.”

A final breath falls from his lips, the light fades from his eyes, the lids close over the suddenly dull grey blue, his body relaxes in your arms, like it used to in bed, for a completely different reason. There is no more sound. He is gone.

 

The silence woke him more than anything. The resounding, echoing, deafening silence that emphasised the void left behind when Martin died. He didn’t have time to analyse this thought of course, or to register it, because as soon as a semblance of consciousness returned to him, he had turned to the peacefully slumbering captain next to him, checked his pulse and pulled him into a tight embrace. Martin spluttered in shock and tried to fight his way free. Douglas wasn’t letting go.

“We’re not going clubbing,” he stated firmly. “Ever.”

“I don’t want to go clubbing,” Martin replied, more than slightly confused, his voice muffled against Douglas’ chest. “I’m happy here.”

“Good.”

The room falls silent but outside there are the noises of city life: cars, dogs barking, music blaring, drunken people staggering home and arguing with various inanimate objects on the way. The world isn’t silent. Thank God.

“I love you.”

“Douglas,” is all Martin can manage, after a bewildered pause, rendered almost speechless. He would take a serious look at Douglas and check for any signs of delirium, but the grip is too tight, and there is no way to move Douglas’ arms when they were that determined.

“Are you going to tell me about it?” he asks instead.

“About what?”

“The nightmare.”

“What makes you think I had a nightmare?”

“You woke up suddenly at god knows what time of the morning, immediately grabbed me and pulled me into a frankly bone crushing hug, proceeded to announce that we are never going clubbing, and, and this is the clincher, told me you loved me. You had a nightmare,” lectured Martin, rather enjoying the upper hand. “What was it about?” he asked, tone much softer having made his point.

“You died,” Douglas said simply, after a long pause.

“Oh. Clubbing?”

“Outside a club. You were attacked.”

“I see.”

A pause.

“Fair enough, no clubbing for us,” Martin said, trying to lift the mood. Douglas shakes his head but doesn’t say anything. “It’s alright. I’m here,” he tries rubbing circles on Douglas’ back. Douglas chuckles humourlessly.

“That’s what I said to you.”

“What?”

“Before you died.”

“Oh. I see. It was just a dream, Douglas, you know that, you’ve teased me about nightmares before.”

“Yes, because they are ridiculous and not real and,” he sighs, “scary when they don’t happen very often and happen to be about the death of someone you care about.”

“Right. Well make the pulse checking a bit longer next time so I can prepare my rib cage to be crushed.”

“Very well. Weakling,” Douglas smirked, relaxing his grip just a little. Martin wriggled closer with the new found freedom, pressing his cheek to Douglas’ chest, listening to his heart beat.

“Martin?”

“Just checking,” Martin admits, counting the beats intently. “After the last nightmare.”

“You never said anything.”

“You never asked,” Martin shrugged. “Anyway, I’m usually lying with my head on your chest, I can hear your heart beat and it makes me feel better. Without the grievous bodily harm that you seem fond of.”

“I will be paying for this for a while won’t I?”

“Definitely. We all have to have something, Douglas. And you have so many things.”

“I do. One of which I have proved to my satisfaction is definitely alive.”

“What a morbid pair we make,” Martin laughed. “Both dreaming of the other’s death, anyone would think we’d been married for decades.”

“You started it, I fear.”

“Knew it would be my fault,” Martin grumbled.

The companionable quiet returned.

“I love you too,” Martin said suddenly.

“Hmm?”

“I should have said earlier.”

“You say it all the time.”

“True.”

“Are you really afraid that you won’t get a chance to say goodbye?”

“What?”

“Never mind. Goodnight Martin.”

“Night, Douglas.”

  


As Douglas was drifting off to sleep about half an hour after he thought Martin had returned to his dreams, he could have sworn he heard ‘yes, I am’ whispered. He could have been imagining things of course, but he was Douglas Richardson, occasional vivid nightmares aside, he didn’t imagine that kind of thing. He chose to ignore it anyway, falling asleep with the thought of all the ways he would tease Martin on the flight to Switzerland the next day. He fell asleep smiling.


End file.
